“Paano Ngayon?”

YEAR OF THE LAITY
“Ganito kami noon; Paano Ngayon”
By Fr. Ronald Lunas

On the Eve of the Vatican II.            Prior to Vatican II, there was already the new appreciation of the richness and variety of lay life. The lay faithful began to possess a new sense of their proper role in Church life. Besides, the climate has changed a lot. The tension between Church and world was lesser and the defensive mentality yielded to a sense of mission of the Church in the world. There were also less hard and fast lines being drawn between the hierarchy and faithful, and less danger from clericalism and anti-clericalism. These stirrings were recognized by Vatican II as the “unmistakable work of the Holy Spirit.” They helped set the agenda for the Council’s own deliberation.

In Vatican II.   The Council Fathers of Vatican II considered the following critical matters on the laity as necessary to be dealt with: the formulation of a definition of the laity that surpasses the purely negative one in canon law, and the determination of how the lay person’s secular status relates to membership in the Church.

 The definition of the laity

Chapter 4 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church begins with a positive definition of the laity. The laity are those faithful who by virtue of their baptism are “made one body with Christ and are established among the People of God” (LG 31, cf. CL, 9): children, young, adult and old people; men and women (cf CL 46 ff).

Vatican II makes an official shift away from identifying the Church’s essence with its hierarchical element to its relocation in the collective socio-historical experience of the community. There is the fundamental equality of all members of the Church based upon the sacraments of initiation and the common sharing in the threefold mission of Jesus – priest, prophet, and king.

All members of the Church are united and this unity is prior to all distinctions (cf. LG, chapter 2). Laicity is no longer to be thought of as constituting a separate and lower rank or class. From the Council’s standpoint, to be laity is to be Church. The members of the Church “share a common dignity from their rebirth in Christ… they possess in common one salvation, one hoe and one undivided charity” (LG 32).